“Anyway,” my mother says, placing her hand on mine for a brief instant. “I was just telling Aunt Lorelai about your latest case,” she says, wearing a humble smile to hide the brag she’s about to drop in her sister’s lap.
My phone buzzes in my pocket—which is shocking because very rarely do I ever get a signal out here. Then again, cell towers are more powerful now than they used to be and my phone’s a 4G.
Checking the caller ID, I’m taken aback when I see it’s the private investigator I’ve been working with the last couple of years. He only calls when he’s got a lead and his last couple of leads were dead ends, so I try not to get my hopes up.
“Excuse me. I have to take this.” I make a beeline for my grandfather’s study and close the door behind me.
Unbeknownst to my family, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on private investigators over the years, some of the best of the best, and every search has stopped at the same dead end—as of August 2009, Ed, Junie, and Lila Hilliard seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.
No paper trail. No proof of life. Not a bread crumb of any kind.
My biggest fear is that something unspeakable happened to them and that’s why I can’t find them.
“What do you have for me?” I ask when I answer. When it comes to these matters, I don’t have time for formalities.
I hold my breath and refuse to get my hopes up.
They’ve been dashed far too many times.
“Well, I came across something interesting,” Roland says on the other line. “So I’ve got my new software set to scan obituaries and the like, and it alerts me if any names match the ones on my list. One of the features it comes with searches for partial matches and we got a hit on a Jane Hill in Summerton, Oregon. At first glance, Jane Hill seems like it’d be a pretty a common name. Nothing unique or remarkable or strange. But I took a look at the obit and saw something else. It mentioned she had a granddaughter named Delilah and a husband named Ted. So then I thought … what are the odds that Ted, Jane, and Delilah Hill are actually Ed, June, and Lila Hilliard?”
My heart’s racing so fast I forget to breathe, and I take a seat in Granddad’s leather wingback. Dragging my hand through my hair, I say, “Go on.”
“So I wasn’t able to find anything social media-wise on this Delilah Hill, but I did find a mention in a newspaper article where it said she made the dean’s list at some community college. No pictures or anything. Honestly, this could be a coincidence. A strange coincidence, but if it isn’t, it sure as hell explains why you haven’t been able to find them all these years.”
“Where did you say they live?”
“Summerton, Oregon. Looks like it’s about sixty miles from the coast. Nice little town from what I can gather.”
“Was there a picture with the obituary for Jane Hill?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Thanks, Rol. Going to head out there. I’ll keep you posted.”
I end the call and run a search for airline tickets from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.
I’m going to take the next flight out. If this is her, if this is my Lila, it’s not something that can wait.
As absurd as it seems, the three of them living under aliases is the only thing that would make sense. It would mean all those fruitless searches for her were simply due to the fact that she was living under another name—which actually begs an entire new set of questions that I plan to address once I finally find her.
The pages take forever to load, timing out a handful of times before finally filling out, and I manage to find one seat on a red-eye that leaves tonight.
“Thayer, you doing all right?”
I glance up and find my grandfather standing in the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his khakis and his lips shaped into a concerned frown.
Shoving my phone into my pocket, I rise. “Something came up at work. I’m going to have to take off for a couple of days.”
He frowns. “It’s Mother’s Day weekend.”
I wince. “Yeah. I know.”
“And Whitley’s wedding is next week. We’ve got a full itinerary, family coming in from all over the country. Whatever this is, I’m sure it can wait. Or maybe one of your associates can handle it for you?”
I head toward the doorway, but I get the sense that he’s blocking me in.
“I would strongly advise you not to leave,” he says. It’s funny, now that he can’t hold my tuition over my head, his threats have a little less weight.
“Excuse me,” I say, glancing over his shoulder then back to him.